Dorchester; Friday, 27 September, 2024

I had a half days leave, so after logging off at lunchtime I headed over to the train station and up to Clapham Junction where I changed onto the train down to Dorchester. It’s not the speediest of journeys with the train making many, many stops along the way, and picking up a five minute delay so in the end it was nearly 3 hours to go barely 130 miles.

It was a short walk from the station to my B&B for the weekend and after a quick checkin and dropping off my stuff I headed back out and wandered back into Dorchester for a look around.

My first stop of the afternoon was back close to Dorchester South station where I had only recently got off the train, and the ancient site of Maumbury Rings. The Rings are a pretty unique site having started life as a Celtic era Henge before being adapted by the Romans into an Amphitheatre and then during the English Civil War being used as an army camp and fort by the parliamentary forces. I spent quite a bit of time wandering around the fort, helped by the beautiful light of the sun setting behind the ramparts of the fort.

From the fort it was a short walk up to the Borough Gardens, these are located on the edge of the old Roman Walls and today house a clock tower, band stand, fountain and formal gardens, creating a pleasant green space in the heart of the town. Just outside the northern edge of the gardens is the only remaining section of the old Roman Wall that used to encircle the town when it was Durnovaria.

Close to the Roman Wall, and forward many centuries is the Keep, which looks like it should be part of some medieval castle, but was actually just an elaborate part of a 19th century barracks, today it houses a museum, which was already closed for the evening as I wandered around the building.

From the fort I walked back down the main street of the town, with just the last rays of daylight illuminating the towers of St Peters Church, The Corn Exchange and All Saints Church that form the skyline of the town centre around the Cornhill area home to the original town pump.

After having a quick look around this area I headed down South Street which runs back towards the modern centre of the town on the site of a former brewery where the main bulk of the towns restaurants and the cinema are located, which unsurprisingly on a Friday evening were all pretty busy, but I eventually managed to get a table and had dinner there before heading back to my B&B.

I took a different route back through the centre of town and then down past yet more museums – the town is awash with them – before ending up back at my B&B just before 10pm and a well deserved early night.